Now is the time to plant seeds for fall crops. No seeding, no fall crops, less fall income, and painful mortgage payment woes. So on July 20, John invited yours truly the Unpaid Field Hand, daughter Evelyn, and nephew Matthew to plant 47 flats worth of seeds on his list. Each flat has 128 cells, and my calculator tells me 128 times 47 comes to 6,016 seeds.

It took the three of us working hard about three hours to go through the process. We used organically certified seed starting mix to which we addd organic fertilizer and mixed in a big tub. Each of the 47 flats needs to be filled loosely to the top of each cell, putting one flat on top of the other and pressing down so there is room to put in the seed, inserting the seed, making a marker with the date and variety for each flat, filling the cells in the seed flats loosely to the top, and watering the seeded flats.

Enjoy local food, wine and the company of your neighbors at the 2017 Plow to Plate Harvest Dinner sponsored by Friends & Farmers Cooperative and Mount Nittany Vineyard & Winery. Proceeds will benefit the Friends & Farmers Co-op Online Market. The event will be held at Mount Nittany Vineyard in Centre Hall from 5:00 to 8:30 pm on Wednesday, Aug. 23.

Gardeners all across Central Pennsylvania are having a great year. Good rain in most places and warm temperatures have led to bountiful harvests of all kinds of garden vegetables.

If you are a gardener, you know how quickly you can be overwhelmed with a big harvest. Zucchini is a prime suspect, as having as few as three plants can quickly lead to too many zukes.

After awhile, your neighbors and coworkers are tired of all the cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, etc. you try to share and begin to run from you when they see you coming with a wheelbarrow of produce, o you’re stuck with tons of veggies. What to do? Here’s five ideas…

When you prepare for a beach vacation, there are so many things to think about that often, you are not thinking about that first meal you will eat when you arrive. You just tell yourself, “we’ll just run to a restaurant or grab a pizza and take it to the house.” Yes, a restaurant with your favorite fresh crab cakes or flounder! That’s it!

But then reality hits—everyone is happy by the time you ditch the traffic and smell that sea breeze, but everyone is also ravenous! Waiting time for a meal at a restaurant will not work for little people who have been done with the day before dinner arrives. Even waiting for a pizza seems too long. What to do?

Editor’s Note: This is a fantastic event that’s perfect for any local food enthusiast. Come learn about local organic farming, enjoy some wonderful local food, and just have some fun…

Visitors to Pennsylvania Organic FarmFest 2017​, the two-day organic agriculture and sustainable living event, will enjoy a full slate of interactive family activities, live entertainment, local, organic food and craft vendors, and speakers, educational workshops and demonstrations at the Centre County Grange Fairgrounds, Centre Hall, PA, July 28-29.

FarmFest is free and runs Friday, July 28, from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and Saturday, July 29, from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

The parsnip, children, I repeat,
Is simply an anemic beet.
Some people call the parsnip edible;
Myself, I find this claim incredible.

We like parsnips, and we like to grow them. It ain’t easy. The seeds are very small and it’s difficult to space the seeds properly when sowing. Usually they are too far apart to produce a profitable crop, tempting John to mutter his intention to plow them up.

Mountainhome Farm needs your help! The blueberry and lamb/goat farm has a bit of a problem…lots of delicious blueberries all ripening at the same time. The farm, located in a beautiful area between Julian and Unionville, offers u-pick blueberries at an amazing $2.75 a quart, and they do not want to waste a single berry.

That said, farm owners JoAnn and John Sengle sent a request to let people know that this week, starting at 6:00 p.m. until dusk daily, blueberry picking is available. And these are fantastic blueberries, tasty, sweet, and large.

It’s July in Central Pennsylvania, a great time to be a gardener. If you’re a three-season gardener like me, the spring vegetables have run their course and summer vegetables and herbs are in full swing. There’s always plenty to harvest, and many of us are already overwhelmed by zucchini and cucumbers. Tomatoes are ripening, and young winter squash and pumpkins are showing up on vines.

Of course, part of this is maintaining and managing your garden to make sure it doesn’t falter at any point. Here’s six July garden chores to help ensure a great harvest through the summer and into the fall:

Local Food Notes for June 30 include Over the Moon Farms selling great local meats today at Nature’s Pantry, Frosty Mugs of Thunder Brewfest in Somerset, Tait Farm’s picnic food ideas, and Boalsburg Farmers Market’s special July 4th hours.

Looking for an easy dish to bring to a July 4th picnic? Deviled eggs are a standard go-to for cookouts, and while many recipes for them are basically the same, deviled eggs leave plenty of room for variations. In my hometown of York, Pa., deviled eggs are topped with Old Bay seasoning instead of paprika. Baltimore folks take that one step further, adding crab meat to the deviled egg mixture.

Our deviled egg recipe is more about land than sea, more specifically, the farm. Local eggs that you can get from farmers markets, etc. are often better than their supermarket cousins. Not just in flavor, but in color, as the deeper yellows and oranges of farm-fresh eggs make for an attractive deviled egg visual. To give an even bigger flavor boost, a few strips of local bacon, chopped fine, is added to give it a smoky kick.

Local Food Notes for June 23 includes Bee Tree Berry Farm u-pick, “bites on boards” at Tait Farm, beer and wine tasting in Tyrone, and a gardening seminar put on by Penn State’s Student Farm and the Lemont Barn.

Not only does the farm offer “standard” berries like strawberries, red and black raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, but other types you might not find in a grocery store, such as gooseberries, elderberries, and currants. While the farm is a berry lovers’ dream, it is also the realization of a dream of its owners, Mark and Laura MacDonald.